Keeping Score: Mike Piazza shines out of the spotlight

Piazza, who was born in Norristown and graduated from Phoenixville High, has been out of the news — for the most part — since retiring from baseball at the end of the 2007 season. After 16 years as an all-star catcher, phenomenal hitter, heartthrob to just about every young woman in America and cover material for a wide range of magazines, Piazza has retreated into a low key lifestyle.

But friends and fans throughout Montgomery County clamored for information on one of their favorite sons, so it became necessary to find out what he has been doing.

Since retirement, he built a magnificent home in Miami Beach, married the former Alicia Rickter, and was blessed with two beautiful daughters — Nicoletta and Paulina. In the first few years after retirement he was quite happy to stay out of the spotlight.

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“I needed a bit of quiet time to make the transition to a new life,” said Piazza, during a long chat session that covered a wide variety of topics — including his quickly growing interest in the game of golf. “For 16 years Major League Baseball meant a high-speed lifestyle. You can’t carry that over into regular life.”

Certainly, nobody is every going to believe that Piazza leads a “regular life.” For one thing there is his mansion amidst the glitz and glamour of Miami Beach. And, in it, he owns a concert-level drum and percussion setup that feeds his addiction to heavy metal music.

But Piazza is the other side of the universe from superstars like Dennis Rodman, Deon Sanders or even Joe Namath — who chase the spotlight like heroin addicts chasing a fix.

Of course, there will be no escaping the spotlight come December, when just about every baseball expert predicts that Piazza will become one of the rarest of all baseball stars — a first-ballot entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Election in December would mean enshrinement in July and the glare of the spotlight will be on him again.

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FOR NOW Piazza prefers not to talk about the Hall of Fame election. “If it happens, it happens,” he says. Instead, he has slowly become involved in a new project that suddenly has his juices flowing again.

“Five years ago I was asked to help with some hitting instruction for the Italian National team,” Piazza reports. “At first, I just looked at it as something to do for a short while.”

Then Piazza got the bug. He saw a growing enthusiasm for baseball in Italy and wanted to be part of it. His involvement — and time commitment — has grown each year.

“It’s very rewarding,” Piazza admits. “It’s not like trying to coach in the big leagues, where everyone thinks they know everything already. I’m not interested in working for a Major League team.”

But two months out of every year, Piazza heads to Italy to teach the art of hitting to what is mostly raw talent. Not many are better suited to teach the subject. After being drafted on the final round of the draft and earning over-achiever status as a career .308 hitter, who also hit 427 home runs, Piazza knows that hitting requires technique, as well as natural talent.

“A lot of the Italian kids are raw but I’ve coached some players who have a chance to make it,” he explains. “Alessandro Maestri played at the Double-A level with the Cubs and now is playing in Japan. Alex Liddi made it to the Mariners and became the first Italian-born player in the big leagues since the ‘50s.”

Piazza now has immersed himself in the Italian culture and has even become quite fluent with the language. He loves the lifestyle in Italy and could see himself spending more time there in the future.

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PART OF THE APPEAL could be coming from the recent success of the Italian National team. With Piazza’s help they just won the European Championship, going 8-3 in the round-robin tournament and knocking off the perennial powerhouse team from the Netherlands. The Netherlands team is bolstered by getting a number of lifelong baseball players from Curacao, who have Dutch citizenship. Longtime star outfielder Andruw Jones is one.

The second part of the appeal is a recent idea Piazza formulated to greatly upgrade the level of baseball involvement in Italy.

“You have to realize that there are no high school sports in Italy,” says Piazza. “School is all about the books. Kids have to learn sports outside of school.”

For now, most of that learning takes place at the Italian Academy in Lavoro, in the north of the country near Pisa. Players pay to go there and get intensive training.

“It’s almost like a boarding school for baseball,” explains Piazza.

His dream is to open another academy in Sicily, near the town of his (and much of Norristown’s) ancestors — Sciacca.

“It’s time to expand,” Piazza asserts. “Baseball is becoming so popular in Italy. “This academy would be like a feeder school for the Italian Academy. Also, it would be regional. Players could come in from all over Europe and compete against the best. With the weather in Sicily, it could be open all year.”

Piazza isn’t quite ready to become a fulltime Italian citizen, but expanding his reach there doesn’t seem too difficult.

“I’ve been to Italy 12 times in four years,” he says. “My wife lived and modeled in Milan for a year. We like the lifestyle.”

And he likes the baseball potential.

“I like the long-term possibility of producing players for Major League Baseball from Italy ... in much the same way they do from Japan. Europe is a very viable market. More than 600 million people live there.”

His final argument is a convincing one.

“It’s important to have passion for the things you do in life,” he maintains. “Now that life has slowed down a bit for me, it’s time to follow my passion.”

Tony Leodora is president of TL Golf Services, a golf promotion company that includes his work as host of the weekly GolfTalk Live radio show on WNTP 990-AM and editor of GolfStyles magazine. He is former sports editor of The Times Herald. Send comments to tlgolfservices@aol.com.